Battle Over Regulation

"Senate Republicans, united in opposition to the Democrats'legislation to tighten regulation of the financial system,voted on Monday to block the start of floor debate.

The vote was 57 to 41, as Democrats fell short of the 60votes needed to cut off a filibuster of the motion to proceedto the bill. One Democrat, Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska,sided with Republicans apparently out of concern over aprovision related to tightening the rules on derivativestrading."

You've got to be fucking kidding me. Man the fuck up, Dems. Regulation shouldn't even be a debate at this point.

Look at our fucking country.

The SEC has done zero regulating of the big firms for the last 15 years. And look at us. We are a nation of beggars, borrowing from China and the Middle East to fund wars and imperial expansion while our own citizens are losing their jobs, their homes, and their pride.

"'We are as vulnerable as we are today in the waning days of April 2010 as we were in the fall of 2008 when we saw what happened to our economy,' said Senator Christopher J. Dodd, Democrat of Connecticut and chairman of the banking committee, who is the primary sponsor of the legislation. 'Nothing has changed, except, of course, jobs have been lost, homes have gone into foreclosure, retirement incomes have evaporated, housing values have declined. Almost $11 trillion in household wealth has been lost."

Mr. Dodd continued, "Now, that's what's happened in the last 18 months, but we have yet to stand up and address what caused that to happen in our country, to fill in those gaps, provide the regulation, put the cops on the beat.'

Senator Judd Gregg, Republican of New Hampshire, said that Republicans wanted to prevent a collapse like the one in 2008 but that Democrats were in danger of over-regulating the financial system and risked strangling the economy.

'That should be our first goal, prospectively trying to reduce systemic risk as much as possible," he said. 'The second goal should, however, be that we maintain what is a unique and really rare strength which America has, which is that we have the capacity as a country to create capital and credit in a very aggressive way so that entrepreneurs who are willing to, go out and take risks, have accuess to capital and credit and that creates jobs and that creates the dynamics of our economy.'

Mr. Gregg added, 'We shouldn't put in place a regulatory regime that overly reacts and, as a result, significantly dampens our capacity to have the most vibrant capital and credit markets in the world.'"

Yeah, I know Dodd is a crook. Thanks to Michael Moore, we know that he was getting massive kickbacks and real estate deals during the the buildup to the housing collapse. He is a whore to the Corporatocracy that must be replaced.

However. As much as it sickens me to support some of these corrupt Democrats, at least they're TRYING to push through some sort of progressive bills.

The "Republican party of No" has done absolutely nothing to fix the mess that we have found ourselves in. They have fought Unemployment Benefits extension, Health Care for those that are unemployed, and now they fight to protect Wall Street as it fucks our entire country into the ground.